“Hey, it took thirty years for her to get on your nerves. That’s a world’s record.”
Alyse smiled. Gave me a little kiss. It was nice.
Everyone ordered, the waiter made a show of not writing the orders down (“Uh-huh, very good; uh-huh, excellent choice”), then sped back to the kitchen. Arnie watched him, then said, “Fucking waiter looks like Ted Kaczinski.”
“Excellent call!” I said. “He does look like Kaczinski, just not when they first busted him.”
“No,” Arnie agreed. “When he made his first court appearance.”
“I’ll tell you, when they cleaned him up, Kaczinski looked kinohura terrific.”
Everyone laughed, which made me feel good. Alyse gave me a little nudge like, Good one!
Arnie shook his head and said, “Amazing how a total math genius like Kaczinski could wind up killing people with exploding packages sent from a frozen shack in Montana.”
Meri, infected with psycho-Dr.-Phil-babble-bullshit, said, “His parents must have traumatized him early in his upbringing.”
Arnie said, “His brother who turned him in grew up in the same house and he wasn’t sending out bombs by express mail.”
Ira said, “Well, you know, Aristotle said something about how the right trauma can turn any man into a monster.”
“You know, just because Aristotle said something doesn’t mean it’s true,” I said, though with a dash more aggression than I’d intended (of course, if I’m being honest, it did feel kind of great). Alyse leaned back and away to see from a better angle.
At their silence, I quickly added, “I’m just saying I don’t see why there had to be some trauma that turned Kaczinski into what he became. Isn’t it possible that, for all his math genius, he was also just an asshole?”
That felt pretty good too. So, I just let my mouth continue on, on its own:
“It’s like we need some concrete cause for everything. I mean, look at all of us with our kids. If they’re not perfect angels with tons of friends, high test scores, and straight A’s, immediately we’re looking for a reason. They’re ADD, PDD, they have Asperger’s, there are hormones in their milk, mercury in their tuna sandwiches, they’re brain-damaged from polio shots—I don’t buy it. I think there are still some kids out there who are just flat-out stupid. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. We need stupid kids. Without stupid kids, you can’t identify the smart kids.”
There were smiles and chuckles around the table, but I was getting all my pleasure purely from my spewing.
I exhaled. So that’s how it’s done: You have a thought and you just say it aloud. Fantastic! The fact is, I never considered myself overly opinionated. I’d always been happy to hear Daniel Schoor’s opinion on NPR and adopt his views as my own.
This was a whole new me.
VII.
The reaction around the table, like a movie audience suddenly seeing an actor in an unfamiliar role, made me realize that my reputation for laid-back tactfulness was deeply deserved. Ira didn’t look the least bit offended. In fact, he seemed like he’d just heard a highly enlightening critique that could actually make him reassess his position. Meri’s face lost its usual clench and eased into the look of some co-ed all ga-ga over a professor. Even Fumi surfaced from her chemical haze with a wan smile and said, “I think that is a very . . .” She looked around the room for two more English words “. . . good theory.” Arnie elbowed me in a My man! way. I glanced last at Alyse. She was smiling but looked a bit thrown, blinking a lot. I always found her hyper-batting of lashes totally adorable until that moment when it was I who’d caused the blinking (my standard reflex to a moment that could in any way tweak my wife’s image of me).
Or maybe I was just reading way too much into things.
Chances are, if my (let’s face it) incredibly mild diatribe caused any tension or nerves at the table, it was, most likely, mainly my own. As I said, I was new to outspokenness.
Anyway, the moment of silence following my little outburst was quickly broken by Greg Weinstein, who stopped by to say hello on his way out. A little too hurriedly, I introduced him to everyone at the table.
“Oh man,” Greg said, morphing into all of our fathers. “The booze, the spicy pasta, heavy desserts . . . I can’t eat like this anymore. But you know, it’s all good.”
It’s all good. I glanced at Alyse, expecting her standard eye-roll. It didn’t come.
Then Greg said, “I saw you guys at the rally this morning. It was so crowded, I didn’t try to call out to you. But that was something, huh?”
“Yeah, it was a pretty unusual—”
Apparently, Greg was one of those cheerfully chatty drunks, unable to even let anyone else finish a sentence.
“My neighbor growing up owned the store that used to be where Nu? Girl Fashion is now. It was a bedding place back in the day. Ah, well, it’s all good.”
It’s all good. Glance at Alyse again. Still, nothing.
Meri bubbled, “I remember! Sleep Tight Bed and Mattress. I used to say they were so overpriced I’d rather stay awake.”
Ira laughed and gave Meri a playful nudge. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen a moment of affection pass between them before. For some reason, it bugged me.
Then I caught Weinstein saying, “The second floor of the store was all brick. When Uziel made it into a place for pre-teen sluts, he tried to make it look bigger, so he replaced the bricks with glass. If he’d kept it the way it was, that bottle of horseradish would have shattered, and not his window. Go figure.”
Go figure. I didn’t glance at Alyse after that one because I was too focused on what Weinstein said. Find the architect Uziel used and ask him about the strength of the glass . . .
“Greg! I’ve been waiting for you in the car, you fucking idiot!”
Weinstein’s wife Cheryl blew in on a cloud of industrial strength perfume, her copper-dyed hair sprayed to a tsunami-proof hold. “It’s freezing in that car.”
“Okay, honey. Okay. I just stopped to say hello.”
The Weinsteins marched out and Meri said, “I designed their kitchen a hundred years ago. She had a case of postpartum depression you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”
I glanced at Alyse again, who was now staring darkly at Meri.
Arnie elbowed me and said, “You know, I must say, if your friend Weinstein gets home tonight, beats his wife to death with a ball-peen hammer, hacks her up, stuffs her body parts in clearly-marked Ziploc bags, puts them in the freezer, and then serves them to his kids for dinner tomorrow, I would still testify on his behalf at the trial.”
I turned left as Alyse snorted out her latest sip of wine from laughing so hard, and then turned right as Fumi, who laughed as well, fell back from her chair and hit her head upon the floor.
Arnie jumped off his chair. “Oh, shit!”
He pulled open one of her eyes, put his face next to her mouth, looked up at me, and calmly said, “Call 911.”
VIII.
Arnie, Alyse, and I followed the ambulance to the emergency room. (Meri offered to come as well but Arnie, instead of just saying “Thanks but it’s not necessary,” threw a few bills in her face and said, “No. Just go home.”)
Alyse called Chelsea, our sitter, who immediately told Alyse not to worry, she’d stay as long as necessary. Pretty responsible for a girl who wouldn’t take a crap at four years old, huh?
At the hospital, it was determined that Fumi hadn’t fallen over from laughter, but from an overdose of her medication (which apparently had been her secret side dish throughout the meal).
Arnie, Alyse, and I sat in the waiting area, all of us having reached an age when hospital vigils were nothing new. An EMT swept in with a teenager on a stretcher, the poor kid’s hand wrapped in bandages, a small version of a picnic cooler sitting between his legs.
Arnie broke a long si
lence. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you guys coming here with me.”
I waved it away and said, “It’s nothing, Arnie. What’s a hospital vigil among best friends?”
“Don’t you have, like, a million best friends?”
“No. Alyse is the one with all the friends.”
Alyse nodded, “Yeah, I have a lot of friends. None that I like, though.”
Shit, did I say that line to you before as if I’d made it up myself? Somehow I think I said that to you at some point. Hmm. Truth is, I’ve stolen that line from Alyse a million times since she first said it. I actually steal a lot of her lines. I’ve even unknowingly co-opted her lines right in front of her. Later, she’ll give me shit, threatening me with a plagiarism suit, but I still do it anyway. She’s full of great one-liners.
“Your friend Meri is kind of . . .”
Alyse finished Arnie’s sentence, “An asshole?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to go that far.”
Alyse gazed off and said, “It’s weird realizing that the only thing you have in common with some of your friends is that you’re friends.”
“Hey,” Arnie said, “you make these friends in high school and college, and thirty years later, you’re supposed to feel the same about them. What the fuck?”
I’d thought a lot about this very subject and said, “Actually, I have no friends left over from high school and just a few from college, the closest of whom lives in South Carolina. And he couldn’t even make it to my wedding.”
“Why not?” Arnie asked, seeming genuinely miffed on my behalf.
“Well, he had a good excuse. He’d just graduated from law school and was doing volunteer legal work for the World Hunger Foundation. So, considering he was in Sub-Saharan Africa at the time, it was a little tough for him to make it to Long Island for the wedding.”
Commie, you came up in conversation that night. You must feel good about that.
“Of my friends who did make it to the wedding, I’m in touch with maybe five. There are three or four I just cut off altogether.”
Alyse said, “I’ve always been amazed at how you’ve done that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like that guy from your frat house who used to hang around us a lot?”
“Oh, Doug Maitz. Jesus.”
Okay, Commie, I guess it’s not as flattering that your name came up when you hear that Doug Maitz’s came up too. Oh well. Sorry.
“Arnie,” Alyse said, tapping his arm in a way I’m sure Arnie found adorable. “This guy Doug never dated anyone in his life, but he was, you know, a nice guy. As harmless as can be, really. Anyway, after college, he lived in New Jersey back when we still lived in the city, and we’d see him once in a while. What was he, a sales rep?”
“Yeah, for a company that manufactured slim-cut, bulletproof vests.”
Arnie held his hand up, “What?”
A snort/laugh escaped Alyse, “Oh God, I’m sorry. But it’s the truth. Bullet-proof vests that didn’t fit all bulky.”
“Form-fitting flak jackets,” Arnie mused. “Sure, why not look thin while taking a slug from a .45?”
Again, Arnie made Alyse giggle and, again, I didn’t feel at all insecure about it. I thought I’d mention that again.
“Of course, Doug had no money,” Alyse went on, “so we’d treat him to an occasional day in the city like it was some kind of backward version of the Fresh Air Fund. And then one day . . .” Alyse turned from Arnie to me. “. . . Doug left a message that he was coming to town and you just said, ‘You know what? I’ve had it.’ You ignored the message, then a few more, and that was it. We never saw the poor free-loader again.”
“I probably saved us enough to pay off a year’s worth of college tuition.”
Arnie laughed aloud, which was fairly amazing considering that we were sitting there waiting for the results of his wife’s stomach pump. “Man, I have so much more respect for you now than I did before hearing that story.”
Alyse laughed too and said, “Yeah, that’s my husband’s version of the Atkins Diet. Instead of carbs, he cuts out people.”
Now we were all laughing, which must have been a highly unusual sight for the chief resident of the ER, Dr. Felix Chang.
“Everything went fine,” Chang said, putting his hand on Arnie’s shoulder. “Your wife is resting comfortably. We’re gonna keep her overnight. She’s a little woozy, but if you want to look in on her, you can.”
With surprising urgency, Arnie said, “Yes, thank you. Please, I do.”
Dr. Chang said, “Of course. But it’s best that only one of you go.”
Arnie turned to Alyse and me, “I’ll be just a minute. I just want to see her.”
Alyse and I gave take-all-the-time-you-need nods and Arnie followed Dr. Chang to the action. Sitting across from us about fifteen feet away was a Latino couple quietly arguing in tense Spanish. The Israel part of Park Israel Hospital seemed pretty superfluous in that ER. I guess it’s no different at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital or the Lutheran Trauma Center. Medical emergencies cloud all religious preference. If there were a place called Long Island Atheist Hospital, I wonder what kind of business they’d do.
“Their son was shot in the neck with a nail gun,” Alyse said in a whisper, nodding toward the Latino couple. She listened more. “He was conscious when they brought him in.” More talk. The woman said something as her voice cracked. Alyse didn’t say anything.
“What did she just say?”
“‘So much blood.’”
Did I mention that Alyse is a language savant? She spoke fluent French after three classes at Maryland. My mother’s bugged her for twenty years to get a job as an interpreter at the UN. God forbid a talent isn’t used to make money. Alyse laughs every time that comes up. She still gets a huge kick out of my mother. It’s nice.
I was in love with my freshman Spanish teacher. She was the first woman I knew who called herself “Ms.” and who never wore a bra.
“Makes you feel a bit trivial to be in the Emergency Room waiting on a Paxil overdose,” Alyse said, taking her eyes off the Latino couple. “Heroin, okay. But this? Eh.”
I smiled and said, “That was a funny thing you said to Arnie before about having so many friends but no one you like.”
“I was only half-joking. It’s not just Meri, who was a total jerk tonight. I was already mad at Gil Binder.”
“What did he do?”
“Esme had dinner at the Binders last night. Esme mentioned You-ey’s anti-Semitic comment because she’s at an age where she can’t keep anything to herself. Then the crime happens and Gil decides to call the police and mention Esme’s name. Couldn’t he just leave it at, ‘One of my daughter’s friends told me she had an anti-Semite at her house at about the time of the crime?’”
“Alyse, to follow up on the lead, the cops needed Esme’s name.”
“Not necessarily. I guarantee Esme mentioned that the guy’s name was You-ey Brushstroke. Gil could have just told them his name and left Esme—and us—out of it. Then we wouldn’t have had cops coming to our house, scaring the shit out of Charlie and enraging you by staring at my ass.”
“I’m over that,” I lied.
“I’m not. I mean, I’m not over your reaction to it. But that’s beside the point.”
I had a flicker of a thought: If it was all so beside the point, why did Alyse mention it again? But she went back to her main point before I could fully process the thought.
“Sometimes I really do hate my friends. I can see why you like Arnie so much. He’s the complete opposite of everyone else we know.” For an unprecedented second time in one day, Alyse’s eyes misted over. This time, she fought back full-on crying and just said, “We should move back to the city.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know. This probably isn’t t
he best moment to decide.”
“We can talk about it some more.”
Alyse took a tissue out of her bag and blew her nose. The Latino couple looked at her.
“Sorry.” For such a feminine girl, she sure can pump out some volume blowing her nose. I suppressed a laugh, and Alyse smiled and said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Like a perverse bedroom comedy, Alyse exited and Arnie entered. I stood up.
“How is she?”
Arnie shrugged and said, “Alright, I guess.” He threw up his hands in that international you-just-can’t-win kind of way.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking about how I wound up in this situation. Not the hospital. The marriage. You know, when I was, let’s say, between marriages, I was totally obsessed with girls. It was sick. Every time two girls passed on the street, my mind would immediately decide which one I’d do if I had the choice. If there were twenty-five girls, I’d run my own little NCAA tournament in my head to decide the winner. I saw a shrink for about a month because that’s what you do after a divorce, and he said I needed to get to the bottom of my ‘preoccupation with fornicating.’ Jesus. Fornicating. We don’t have enough words for screwing without coming up with another that sounds so scientific? Photosynthesis leads to fornicating within the plant’s stamen. Anyway, at some point, I decided that having a wife and family was an insane way to go through life. I’d look at random couples on the street and wonder: Why don’t they get divorced? I’d hear people talk about how hard divorce is on the kids and think: Still? You’d think kids would have evolved to the point of being used to divorce. The stable family is what seemed to me to be hardest on the kids. So, that was my state of mind until I had that skiing accident in Steamboat.”
“The separated shoulder. You couldn’t work.”
“For a month! I was just stuck at home. I couldn’t do anything. Suddenly, I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed a wife. I needed people around me. Kids. You name it. I realized that the future was only going to bring along even more debilitating ailments and I needed to be taken care of. I wanted to be a burden on others! I did a total attitude U-turn. The only thing I can compare it to is that moment you’re watching a movie and realize that you won’t be spending your life with Halle Berry. As sick as it makes you feel, it’s a relief too. You can move on. Get married to a woman—a human woman. Well, I may as well have stood on the corner trying to hail down a wife. The first woman to slow down and pull over was Fumi and she seemed perfect. I’d heard somewhere that Asian women are really devoted to taking care of their men. And here I am, taking care of her.”
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